Edmund Spenser Sweet Quotations

There is continual spring, and harvest there Continual, both meeting at one time: For both the boughs do laughing blossoms bear, And with fresh colours deck the wanton prime, And eke attonce the heavy trees they climb, Which seem to labour under their fruits load: The whiles the joyous birds make their pastime Amongst the shady leaves, their sweet above, And their true loves without suspicion tell abroad.

Much can they praise the trees so straight and high, The sailing pine,the cedar proud and tall, The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry, The builder oak, sole king of forests all, The aspin good for staves, the cypress funeral, The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage, the fir that weepest still, The yew obedient to the bender's will, The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill, The myrrh sweet-bleeding in the bitter wound, The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill, The fruitful olive, and the platane round, The carver holm, the maple seldom inward sound.

A sweet attractive kind of grace, A full assurance given by looks, Continual comfort in a face, The lineaments of Gospel books-- I trow that countenance cannot lye Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.

Sweet is the rose, but grows upon a brere; Sweet is the juniper, but sharp his bough; Sweet is the eglantine, but stiketh nere; Sweet is the firbloome, but its braunches rough; Sweet is the cypress, but its rynd is tough; Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill; Sweet is the broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough; And sweet is moly, but his root is ill.

Sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play, A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair

Make haste therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime, For none can call again the passed time.

All love is sweet Given or returned And its familiar voice wearies not ever.

Whiles every sence teh humour sweet embayd, / And slombring soft my hart did steale away, / Me seemed, by my side a royall Mayd / Her daintie limbs full softly down did lay: / So faire a creature yet saw never sunny day.